NC Asset Building Policy Task Force
Priority Policy Recommendations Overview
Go to Priority Policy Recommendations
As a nation, we subscribe to the ideals that all children should have an equal opportunity to reach their potential and that each generation can achieve a better quality of life than the last. However, the increasing costs of education, housing, and health care, lagging wages, and growing disparities in the distribution of wealth make the achievement of these ideals increasingly unattainable for many families. At the same time, the national rate of savings has dropped to zero, with many families across the income spectrum encumbered with growing levels of debt. This lack of savings poses challenges for the next generation of children and for the economy as a whole.
In response, policymakers across the country have called for renewed efforts to help all Americans save and build assets. Assets – a home, a small business, savings for college, a retirement account – provide both a safety net for hard times and the means to build a more stable economic future. Dating back to the Homestead Act and the GI Bill, public policies have long promoted asset development. A worthwhile public investment, assets provide greater household and community stability, create long-term thinking and planning, provide the resources for economic development, and enhance the well-being and life chances of children.
With the goal of expanding opportunities for all North Carolinians to build a more stable financial future, the North Carolina Asset Building Policy Task Force formed in 2006 and now enjoys the participation of over forty private, public, and non-profit organizations. Over the past year, the Task Force identified a range of state policies to support asset building for all North Carolinians, with a particular focus on low and moderate-income working families and persons with disabilities.
The Task Force is encouraged that, by authorizing the new North Carolina Kids Care health insurance program, enacting a state Earned Income Tax Credit, and taking steps to address the home foreclosure crisis, North Carolina made significant improvements in its asset building policy framework this past legislative session and added to its national reputation as a leader in efforts to curb predatory lending. However, the fact that North Carolina was recently awarded a grade of D on CFED’s 2007 State Assets and Opportunity Scorecard sends a clear signal that there is much work to be done.
To begin what the Task Force envisions as an ongoing initiative over at least the next two years, it has framed an initial set of recommendations on ways to maintain and strengthen the state’s current policy framework to support asset building, outlined below. While this initial set of recommendations is the collective work of the Task Force, it is a work in progress and participation in Task Force meetings doesn’t necessarily imply individual organization endorsement of each recommendation. The Task Force will issue a more comprehensive report early in 2008 that describes each recommendation in greater detail. We welcome comments and encourage interested organizations and individuals to contact us about our ongoing work.